Recasting intractable policy issues: The wider implications of the Netherlands civil aviation controversy

The explosive growth of civil aviation is among the most difficult issues i n transportation policy and nowhere are the fundamental economic and enviro nmental challenges it poses more apparent than in a report expansion. conve ntional policy, analyses have ineffectively handled these problems, charact erized by uncertainty, complexity, and polarization. increasingly, policy a nalysts and public managers depend on stakeholder involvement to recast int ractable issues into a more tractable format. This article describes a meth od that supports this recasting process through analysis Of stakeholders' p olicy arguments; and in so doing contributes to the increasing literature o n recasting intractable policy issues and to the recent discussion of Q-met hodology in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. The method is ap plied in a policy analysis of the controversy over the expansion of Amsterd am's Schiphol Airport. The analysis, which was undertaken on behalf of the Dutch government and which has wider implications, leads to a new agenda fo r transportation policy by uncovering and addressing a fuller range of alte rnatives that move beyond the current polarization and allow the problem to be redefined more tractably. (C) 2001 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.